How Our Change in Career Could Affect Our Finances

While the new adventure in working from home comes with excitement for this new change in our lives, and we know on a broad scale we will be saving money overall, it is important that we note how not just savings, but how all finances will be affected by this decision to work from home. We have communicated with one another and made a thorough list of all the finances in our lives that may be altered, whether it be up or down. Below is the list and based on our budget and regular spending, how we see it altering for us after we begin our work from home careers.

Commuting and gas costs – Since we will be working from home, our savings in gas will be wonderfully rewarding! Gas prices are high these days and often times together we would spend $50 bucks a week just from the work commuting, resulting in $200 dollars a month. That means we can save about $200 a month in gas! Of course, we still will be driving, to the grocery store, friends’ houses, dates, and shopping, but essentially there will be days where we won’t need to drive at all!

Food costs – This was a tricky one for us! Working in an office, we often spend a lot eating out. Pretty much every day both of us buy our lunch out at a fast food place and because we’re tired after work, pick up something to go and bring it home after work for dinner. So we decided on average we’d save about $240 a month on not eating out. However, then we began to think how we will be home more, meaning, we will be buying more food. Probably not an extra $240 in groceries every month, but maybe $100-150 extra. Still it turns out in our favor leading to a good $100-$140 in savings from not eating out!

Electricity – Electricity is a pain! Working from home will no doubt raise our electricity bill as we will be using our home computers, printer, phone, the thermostat will need to be set to a comfortable temperature and the lights will be on. Also, if we have background noise on such as the television or stereo, then that will use up electricity too. We are going to try and minimize these costs such as using as much window light as possible, but still the bill could probably go up a decent $100 a month.

Childcare – Childcare costs are expensive! The average childcare weekly cost for one child is about $180 – 200 dollars. Working from home will save us in childcare fees, and also the commute to and from daycare.

Taxes – Working from home comes with the benefit of being able to file for home office tax. You can claim a proportion of expenses against tax. If this is to be done, you will need to have records that will support such an expense claim (receipts etc.,) Often times people believe you can’t file for things such as phone usage and Internet usage, since how could one tell these apart from personal and work use. However, that is false and you are able to file these on tax returns. To do so, for example, you could keep a log of phone usage for a certain time period to show business calls.

Insurance – Working from home regularly requires that you inform your insurer. Some insurance companies view those who work from home as a higher risk because of the home office equipment and how expensive it can be. Other insurance companies feel those who work from home are less of a liability as they are home all day and less likely to have break-ins. Thus, depending on your insurance company, the prices can go up or down.